


How to reintegrate into society in about forty weeks

by mayachain



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Loyalty, M/M, Post - X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), Reconciliation, Trust, Trust Issues, Violence, dead people staying dead, poetry as anchor, teacher Bobby Drake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 16:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1654514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of timestamps set during the first year after St John escapes from imprisonment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One Day

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [How to escape from prison in 210 days](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1654079) by [mayachain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain). 



> Posted to dry_ice back in 2010. Beta credits belong to **evilsincarnate**.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 24 hours ago, St John Allerdyce escaped from his prison in the Xavier Mansion's cellar. Robert Drake is not a happy mutant teacher.

_Dark House, by which once more I stand_  
 _Here in the long unlovely street_  
 _Doors, where my heart was used to beat_  
 _So quickly, waiting for a hand[.]_

(from “Dark House” by Alfred Lord Tennyson)

  


**One Day**

He wakes up, and his first thought is _This is weird_. His limbs are less heavy than they have been for God knows how many weeks. There's also a dull ache in every part of his body, but it's easier to ignore than it usually is. It almost feels as if he's actually had a good night's sleep for once. 

The mere thought is ridiculous. These days, Robert Drake never sleeps.

After a long minute, eight years of training finally kick in. He doesn't move a muscle, but his mind commences going through the drilled-in checklist of who, where, how, what and why. 

The first one, _who am I?_ he can safely skip. The answer to _where am I?_ also comes easy: the ceiling looks familiar, and the scent of the bedding is familiar as well. He seems to be alone: He can't see, hear or sense anyone else around. _How did I get here?_ \- he has no idea, but he forces himself to go over _what_ and _why_ before panic can take him over. _What happened?_ The last thing he remembers is going into the cellar to see John. There, something he can work with. _Why did I go downstairs?_ The panic is closer, too close, his mind refusing to volunteer the reason. He tries to recall what came before the stairs, but his memory deliberately shuts down. _Focus._ The last thing he remembers is a glimpse of St John Allerdyce. His name is Robert Drake, he just woke up in his own room, and he's here, presumably, because someone – John? – brought him here.

This is the instant Robert figures there must be drugs involved, because there is no way it would have taken him this long to think of his students otherwise. The panic is still simmering at the edges, waiting to attack his senses full force. He only allows himself a few more seconds before sliding out from under the covers. 

His mouth feels dry, and yeah, he's definitely been drugged. His mind still remains uncooperative as to whoever's – John's?! – motivation to use a... a syringe, probably... on him even as he drinks down the water someone – _John_ \- left on the nightstand.

Unsteady on his feet, he staggers down the empty corridor. There's no-one to be seen. There are no signs of a fight more recent than yesterday, no new damage added to the carnage caused on the night when – 

There's a scent in the air that his drowsy nose can't place yet, getting stronger the closer he gets to the dining hall. He can hear the soft sounds of children chattering. The confirmation that his charges aren't in any immediate danger is a relief, but Robert thinks, hopes that Iceman would have been up on his feet long before now if they had been.

He's almost made it to the dining hall when a wall of fire flares up in his path. On a normal day – no, random fire walls surging up to stop him are not normal, even for Iceman – on any other day, it would have been frozen within seconds, but today he just stares at it, mind too slow to catch up but instincts waiting for something. He would really appreciate it if the residual effects of the drugs would wear off about now; his reflexes need to be way better than this when – 

The wall of fire morphs into a pattern, forming a word, two words, three even. Robert squints, rubs his eyes once and then reads them again:

GO SHOWER, DRAKE.

 _Oh,_ he thinks. _Okay, then._

  


****.** **


	2. One Week

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seven days ago, St John Allerdyce escaped from his prison in the Xavier Mansion's cellar. He is one exhausted former prisoner.

_While I draw this fleeting breath,_  
 _when mine eyes shall close in death,_  
 _when I soar to worlds unknown,_  
 _see thee on thy judgment throne[.]_

(from “Rock of Ages” by Augustus M. Toplady) 

  
**One Week**

St John cannot remember Pyro ever being this exhausted before. “And don't ever come back!” he hears one of the children holler just as the last fleeing opponent disappears out of sight. Trying and failing to get an overview of the situation in the battered dining hall, he lets himself slide down next to one of the charred bodies, conceding that he never tried to protect this many people before, much less at the same time.

_Get lost right now,_ he had called out to the Brotherhood attack squad, grabbing Bobby's speaker-phone as soon as Jones had reported a breach of the Mansion grounds. He'd been responsible for these mutant warriors once. But.

It's one thing for these children who were raised in the spirit of Charles Xavier to have opinions and thoughts for which St John has manfully suppressed the urge to singe them. It's one thing for the Westchester students, robbed of their naiveté as they may have become, to want to defend ordinary humans according to the deceased telepath's teachings.

It's another thing entirely for the Brotherhood to go attacking their own. It means violating everything Magneto stood for. 

Pyro hadn't stayed Magneto's second-in-command for nearly five years without learning every single one of his subordinates' weaknesses. And even the stench of their charred remains is not sufficient to serve as a metaphor for St John's hatred for them.

“Good thing they wanted the basement technology,” Siryn says, wiping soot from her face, and St John has to agree. This is what saved them, that tiny bit of reticence on the Brotherhood's part and Pyro's lack of qualms against burning the Mansion down. He probably would have, had it not been for the now-apparent million-dollar reinforcement of century-old walls.

In another minute, he will get up. In another minute, he will care about Drake murmuring quietly into a comm unit, hearing from Hank whether Kitty and Pete are alive. 

Beast had been a pleasure to fight alongside. Some of the kids, too. Pyro hadn't expected to see Iceman kill, but St John had only needed to take a look at the emergency blankets stacked high in every corner of the dining hall to know the length Drake was prepared to go to in defense of the children.

He meets Bobby's eyes across the room and then shakes his head as the mutant teacher erects a wall of ice around the bodies. “It's not as if the kids haven't already seen them,” he wants to say, would say it, if it wouldn't take so much effort. 

He traces his erstwhile captor's moves around the carnage until pigtail-girl – Ellie, her name is Ellie – puts a glass of cool water in his hand, until one of the boys who's been learning from Hank is checking him for injuries.

Letting his eyes fall closed, St John wonders how hard it will be to contact the Brotherhood core - _God_ , he hopes there still is a temperate core – and whether whatever clout he may have left with the people he commanded six months ago will be enough to make sure the mutants that have escaped his wrath will _never_ return.

 

.


	3. One Month

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four weeks ago, St John Allerdyce escaped from his prison in the Xavier Mansion's cellar.  
> Kitty Pryde is one wary mutant teacher.

_When thou dost greater judgment spare,_   
_And with thy knife but prune and pare,_   
_Even fruitful trees more fruitful are:_

_Such sharpness shows the sweetest friend,_   
_Such cuttings rather held than rend,_   
_And such beginnings touch their end._

(from “Paradise” by George Herbert)

  
**One Month**

Back when Kitty had been a student at Xavier's, the most praxis-oriented subject on the curriculum had been Mr Summers' auto shop lessons, Danger Room training notwithstanding. Since then, all young mutants have had to learn a thing or seventeen about reconstructing the Mansion. Students and teachers alike hardly spend time with anything else these days – even their newest resident. 

She can't help but twitch whenever she sees him, probably will for a long while. She never went to visit him after Ororo died, has had little time to acclimatize. Since well before Kitty got her own X-Men uniform, seeing Pyro within a hundred feet of anyone she cared about had been a bad thing.

But while she may flinch, she will never pretend that Bobby would not have broken long ago, that there would not have been an unfathomable number of casualties if not for John's assistance. Kitty had not needed the smoke reaching her infirmary bed, had not needed to see the bodies eventually taken to Hank's impromptu morgue to know how deadly the fire had been. 

_Casualties._ She has to think in these terms, otherwise she doesn't know if she could stop crying.

“He'll have to prove himself,” she'd warned Bobby, adamant that her friend not be blinded by his feelings, relieved at his earnest, quietly spoken “I know.” John will be on trial for a long time, judged by Piotr and herself if not by Bobby and Hank. She doesn't know if they will ever again come close to the cautious friendship they'd all had so long ago.

If he decides to stay, if he continues to refrain from abandoning them as he has this past month, then re-opening her heart to him may become a possibility. If that happens, _if_ , she knows one of the first things she'll have to say to him is _Did you know I considered us friends?_ Because it had been made devastatingly clear that at sixteen, he had not.

During the last weeks, she has seen some of the younger children slip lighters into their pockets, even the ones that never smoke. It might feel like an insult to the effort Shadowcat, Colossus, Iceman and Beast put into saving their lives if the washing machines didn't reveal them still all wearing thermal underwear. Kitty wonders how long it will take before she starts collecting books of matches herself, or discussing literature while painting the dining hall white again.

When they are done, the pitch-black scorch marks framing the doors and windows will remain for all to be seen.

 

.


	4. Six Months

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Half a year ago, St John Allerdyce escaped from his prison in the Xavier Mansion's cellar. He is one reluctant mutant teacher.

_It lies not in our power to love or hate,_  
 _For will in us is overruled by fate. [...]_  
 _The reason no man knows; let it suffice_  
 _What we behold is censured by our eyes._  
 _Where both deliberate, the love is slight:_  
 _Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?_

(from “Who Ever Loved, That Loved Not At First Sight?”  
by Christopher Marlowe) 

  
**Six Months**

St John has avoided this ever since he started out, has put off entering the library to take a good look at Professor X's books since Bobby said he was allowed. If Pete hadn't bodily dragged him into the dark-lit room, he doubts he would have entered it now.

It will take weeks to get a full overview of the potential stored on these shelves, although St John exiles the entire Shakespeare collection on principle, first thing. He remembers the awe the room inspired before it turned into resentment, cannot help but be honestly impressed, now.

He basically spent six months imprisoned with dead poets as his only company. Once everything calmed down, it felt natural to bring up the texts he had learned by heart, starting with citing Lord Brooke Fulke Greville at Sid's funeral. He had been both bemused and pleasantly surprised by the group of about seven children that had gravitated toward him, eager to escape recent memories and to discuss and share their thoughts.

“You should think about a grade system,” Kitty urges him again and again, a standard that can turn the meetings into a real class, but St John refuses to do that. These children have had enough adults hammering in their heads with views that were _best for them_ , and he won't judge beyond their willingness to learn, won't let meaningless numbers curb in their passion. Luckily and perhaps more surprisingly than it should be, not only has his decision got Bobby's reluctant backing, but Pete's as well.

Moving along the rows of books, St John takes note of the authors he recognizes, resolves to go back to the ones he doesn't. He sneezes once or twice, ignores fingers gray from dust and is unprepared when his exploration of the shelves goes further than Xavier would ever have let him go, thoroughly unprepared to uncover several thick volumes with the inscription _Erik Lensherr_ in them. 

“It's all upstairs,” Bobby had told him the very day he took him prisoner. Somewhere in a remote corner of the Mansion's attic, there are four boxes holding sixteen-year-old Pyro's possessions. St John doesn't want any of it back, is not even interested in taking a quick look. But the thought that they are there, that it has been seven years, that they were kept even when Bobby moved out of their once-shared room... It means something, meant something even when Pyro ignored Bobby throughout his imprisonment, even if St John still hasn't found the words for all that meaning entailed.

It never occurred to him that Professor Xavier, a man more than capable of keeping track of everything that went on under his roof, must have let Bobby do with Pyro's things whatever he wanted, must have _encouraged_ him because once, eons ago, he had done the same. 

He stays on the carpeted floor for the rest of the afternoon, staring at the hand-written, familiar curves of the name. He doesn't react when the door finally opens, doesn't acknowledge the footsteps that come up behind him. When Bobby crouches down in a tailor's seat, he angles Ernest Rhys' [Marlowe collection](http://www.amazon.com/The-Plays-Christopher-Marlowe/dp/B000XXDGH8) to the side and waits. “Top of your reading list,” Bobby says, and St John's shoulders relax a fraction.

“Yeah.”

 

.


	5. Nine Months

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forty weeks ago, St John Allerdyce escaped from his prison in the Xavier Mansion's cellar. Logan is no longer the X-kids' favorite teacher.

_Silence augmenteth grief, writing increaseth rage,_   
_Staled are my thoughts, which loved and lost the wonder of our age:_   
_Yet quickened now with fire, though dead with frost ere now,_   
_Enraged I write I know not what; dead, quick, I know not how._

(from “Epitaph on Sir Philip Sidney” by Lord Brooke Fulke Greville)

  
**Nine Months**

The Vespa comes to a halt, and Logan sits back on the saddle and takes a moment to let himself just _look_ at the Mansion. In the years since he first came here, he's regained glimpses of places he must have lived in at some point. To his surprise, some of them weren't even that bad. They're all distant, though, and after two years' absence, _this_ place still feels like home.

There's no-one around to see, so he lets himself inhale deeply.

A year or so ago, someone set fire to this place. Just like that, Logan's anticipatory calm is gone. There's an unmistakable scent of smoke, and it does not smell as if Iceman even tried to quench it. There is also, Logan realizes as he slides off the Vespa, a lingering scent of burning flesh.

The front door opens to reveal a boy he recognizes. The kid's nose twitches the way it took Logan four weeks to teach him, expression smoothing out before he leans back inside. "It's Wolverine!" he shouts, confirming to the people inside what those brand new surveillance cameras at the gate must have already shown.

The entrance hall is full of healthy enough children. They look and smell excited to see him, and the thought of a good meal and a bed starts to overwhelm his alarm, but -- there's another scent, one that's not welcoming at all, and it's getting stronger the more children appear. _Silence,_ they're not supposed to be so quiet, not supposed to simply stand there and stare at him.

"Hey," he tries, taking a step forward, shakes the hand of the kid closest to him, intent on greeting all of them by name.

There's Funk, and Syrin, and Ellie and hey, teachers - Iceman and Shadowcat, Colossus, Beast - no Storm, but it isn't unlike Storm to stay in her office to sulk, and... Pyro?

When he realizes his claws have come out, Artie, Paige and Xian have already stepped protectively in front of Magneto's henchman. 

"Where's Rogue?" Shadowcat asks before Logan can utter so much as a snarl. The scent of unwelcome is bordering on hostility now, underlined by mistrust stronger than Scott's ever was, and Logan finds himself reeling at the unexpected rejection. 

"Edmonton," Logan says shortly because _What the fuck is he doing here?_ is clearly the wrong answer. "Where's Sid?" he asks, because he counts all the students that were here two years ago save one.

The helpless anger and accusation in every pair of young mutants' eyes is almost enough to choke him. They will never turn him away from this home, but even before Pyro volunteers, “Dead.” when no-one else will, Logan knows they will never look at him the same again.

 

.


	6. Epilogue - One Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twelve months ago, St John Allerdyce escaped from his prison in the Xavier Mansion's cellar. He is one happy former prisoner.

**Epilogue - One Year**

There's a soft flame hovering above the bed, melting away a thin sheen of ice. There's lukewarm water trickling down two blissed-out bodies. There are this day's grime, traces of semen and streaks of perspiration gently being washed off their skin. 

98% - they've experimented - drips into a bucket.

“That's so neat,” Bobby murmurs.

“It'd take less energy to get up, you know,” St John grumbles, but he still only allows the barest of spaces to open between them, doesn't make any further attempt to move.

“Mm,” Bobby agrees, or disagrees, as the mattress dries underneath him.

They drowse for a few minutes, St John a heavy weight on Bobby's chest. Eventually, Bobby summons up the strength to roll them over twice until they land in about the same position on the clean side of their newish bed.

“That'd definitely take less energy,” St John comments, sounding a bit more awake now, propping himself up by crossing his arms above Bobby's breastbone.

“Mm,” Bobby says again, although St John is right and the tiny adrenaline surge is thwarting his attempt to go to sleep. Flashes from this morning's minute of silence start creeping into his mind, making him cringe. He blinks his eyes open to look up at St John, tries to keep the prevalent exhaustion out of his voice. “The system's flawed. Maybe we should go again?”

“Ugh,” St John groans. “If you actually meant that – ” Nothing short of an attack or a cry for help from the children will make either of them move another muscle this evening.

“Read for me then,” Bobby demands.

“Do you see a book in reach, Iceman?” St John scoffs.

“As if you need one,” Bobby counters. “And it'll put me right to sleep. Come on.”

“Ignorant,” St John mutters, but allows himself to snuggle a bit closer into Bobby's only slightly cooler body. “All right,” he gruffs, and sifts through all the poems he will never be able to forget again. Neither of them have acknowledged what else happened a year ago, but he settles for the one he used to cover with the next page as soon as his eyes skimmed over it, protecting himself from the words that still managed to hook themselves into his mind. “And don't you dare say 'I'm not that old.' By Robert Browning:”

_Grow old along with me!_  
 _The best is yet to be,_  
 _The last of life, for which the first was made:_  
 _Our times are in his hand_  
 _Who saith, “A whole I planned,_  
 _Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”_

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem St John quotes is “Grow Old Along With Me”. All poems used in this series were taken from my copies of either ["Immortal Poems of the English Language](http://www.amazon.de/Immortal-Poems-English-Language-Williams/dp/0671496107/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books-intl-de&qid=1272837441&sr=1-2) (An Anthology Edited by Oscar Williams) or ["Six Centuries of Great Poetry](http://www.amazon.de/Six-Centuries-Great-Poetry-Collection/dp/0440213835/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books-intl-de&qid=1272837332&sr=8-1) (edited by Robert Penn Warren and Albert Erskine).


End file.
